Best Coach (2010)

Rex Ryan

We're not saying New York Jets coach Rex Ryan has a weight problem, but on rainy Sundays in the fall, when he puts on a Jets raincoat, he looks like a walrus in a pup tent. Rex is twice the coach his father, Buddy, was. The problem is that he is also twice the coach Bill Parcells was—and that was before the Big Tuna tried Weight Watchers. This is serious business, because if the Jets improve as much during the 2010 season as they did in the second half of 2009, the players are going to have to carry the coach off the field after the Super Bowl. And, frankly, we don't think Shaun Ellis, Nick Mangold, D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Damien Woody, and Darrelle Revis—the five Jets who went to the Pro Bowl last year under Ryan—are up to the job (despite Ryan's reported weight loss—which, to be honest, we still haven't noticed). You think thoughts of the Super Bowl are far-fetched? Consider that Gang Green in 2009, during Ryan's first season as a head coach, was only one game away from the big one. Consider, too, that Ryan knows how to bring a team back after a devastating loss, as demonstrated by the 28–14 shellacking of arch rival New England after the opening week's 10–9 debacle against Baltimore.